Research in Plant Biology, 1(2): 01-05, 2011 ISSN: 2231-5101

www.resplantbiol.com
 

Review Article
Factors Affecting Biodiesel Production

M.Mathiyazhagan* and A.Ganapathi

Department of Biotechnology, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu, India –

620 024
Corresponding author E mail: mathibdu@gmail.com

Biodiesel is a renewable alternate fuel to diesel engines that could be partially or

fully replace or reduce the use of petroleum diesel fuel. Biodiesel can be produced from
plant and animal fats through transesterification reaction. The transesterification reaction is
affected by molar ratio of alcohol, presence of water and Free Fatty Acid content, reaction
temperature, catalyst concentration and agitation speed. This review paper discuss about
the factors involved in transesterification reaction.

Importance of biodiesel is always ratio of alcohol, catalyst, presence of water,

increasing due to increase in environment free fatty acid in oil samples, reaction
pollution caused by fossil fuel, depletion of temperature, reaction time and agitation
world petroleum reserves (petrol and diesel) speed. Therefore the present review exposes
and ever increasing of fossil fuel prices. the factors that will affect the
Vegetable oils are an alternative form of transesterification reaction.
renewable fuel to diesel engines. But direct
Effect of molar ratio of alcohol
application of vegetable oil as fuel to diesel
Molar ratio of alcohol plays a vital role in
engines is not possible due to its higher
biodiesel yield (Leung and Guo, 2006; Zhang
viscosity. Hence reduction of vegetable oil
et al., 2003: Ma and Hanna, 1999; Freedman et
viscosity is an urgent need. The viscosity of
al., 1986). Normally the transesterification
vegetable oils can be reduced by using
reaction requires 3 mol of alcohol for one mol
different methods namely blending,
of triglycerides to three mol of fatty acid ester
pyrolysis, microemulsification and
and one mol of glycerol. Excess amount of
transesterification (Peterson et al., 1991;
alcohol increases conversion of fats into
Williamson and Badr, 1998; Ma and Hanna,
esters within a short time. So the yield of
1999; Muniyappa et al., 1996). However,
biodiesel increases with increase in the
transesterification methods have been widely
concentration of alcohol up to certain
used to reduce the viscosity and improve the
concentration. However further increase of
fuel property of vegetable oils. But the
alcohol content does not increase the yield of
transesterification reaction is strongly
biodiesel but it also increase the cost of
influenced by several factors including molar
 

 
 Mathiyazhagan and Ganapathi / Research in Plant Biology, 1(2):01-05, 2011
alcohol recovery (Leung and Guo, 2006). In
addition to this the ratio of alcohol content
may vary with catalyst used , i.e. when we
use alkali catalyst the reaction requires 6:1
ratio of alcohol to catalyze the
transesterification of oils or fats (Zhang et al.,
2003; Freedman et al., 1986). In case the oil
samples contain high free fatty acid (FFA)
such reaction does not respond to alkali
catalyst. In that situation acid catalyst will
be effective to catalyze the reaction and the
reaction requires higher amount of alcohol
than alkali catalyst. This is due to the fact
that acid catalyst tolerates the FFA content
and water content present in the oil samples.
For example waste cooking oil requires
higher ratio of alcohol i.e. 15:1 when
subjected to acid catalyst reaction (Leung and
Guo, 2006; Ali et al., 1995: Sprules and Price,
1950; Zhang, 1994).
Effect of water and FFA contents
The water and Free Fatty Acid (FFA) contents
are critical factors for transesterification
reaction. Base-catalyzed transesterification
reaction requires water free and low acid
value (< 1) raw materials (Demirbas, 2009)
for biodiesel production. If the oil samples
have high FFA content (more than 1%) then
the reaction requires more alkali catalyst to
neutralize the FFA. Presence of water gives
greater negative effect than that of FFAs
because Water can cause soap formation and
frothing which can cause increase in
viscosity. In addition formation of gels and
foams hinders the separation of glycerol from
biodiesel (Demirbas, 2009 and 2005). Free
fatty acid and water always produce negative
result during transesterification and causes
2 
soap formation and consumes the catalyst
which leads to reduction of catalyst effect.
Water and FFA also leads to the reduction of
methyl ester. To overcome this problem,
supercritical methanol method (623 K, 43
MPa, 4 min of treatment with a methanol to
oil molar ratio of 42:1) was proposed by
Kusdiana and Saka (2004) which was
compared to alkaline and acid-catalyzed
method. It may be noted that water has less
influence in supercritical methanol method.
Reaction time
Freedman et al (1986) observed the increase
in fatty acid esters conversion when there is
an increase in reaction time. The reaction is
slow at the beginning due to mixing and
dispersion of alcohol and oil. After that the
reaction proceeds very fast. However the
maximum ester conversion was achieved
within < 90 min. Further increase in reaction
time does not increase the yield product i.e.
biodiesel/mono alkyl ester (Leung and Guo,
2006; Alamu et al., 2007). Besides, longer
reaction time leads to the reduction of end
product (biodiesel) due to the reversible
reaction of transesterification resulting in loss
of esters as well as soap formation (Eevera et
al., 2009; Ma et al., 1998).
Reaction temperature
Reaction temperature is another important
factor that will affect the yield of biodiesel.
For example higher reaction temperature
increases the reaction rate and shortened the
reaction time due to the reduction in
viscosity of oils. However, Leung and Guo
(2006) and Eevera et al., (2009) found that
 Mathiyazhagan and Ganapathi / Research in Plant Biology, 1(2):01-05, 2011
increase in reaction temperature beyond the
optimal level leads to decrease of biodiesel
yield, because higher reaction temperature
accelerates the saponification of triglycerides.
Usually the transesterification reaction
temperature should be below the boiling
point of alcohol in order to prevent the
alcohol evaporation. The range of optimal
reaction temperature may vary from 50°c to
60°c depends upon the oils or fats used
(Leung and Guo, 2006; Ma and Hanna, 1999;
Freedman et al., 1984).
Catalyst concentration
Biodiesel formation is also affected by the
concentration of catalyst. Most commonly
used catalyst for biodiesel production is
sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or Potassium
hydroxide (KOH). However, Freedman et al
(1984) found that the sodium methoxide
would be more effective because mixing of
sodium hydroxide with methanol produce
little amount of water which inhibit the
formation of end product (Biodiesel) due to
the hydrolysis reaction (Guo, 2005). This is
one of the reason for mixing of catalyst with
methanol first and then added to the oil or
fats. In addition to this when
concentration of catalyst is increases with oil
samples, the conversion of triglycerides into
biodiesel is also increases. On the other hand
insufficient amount of catalyst leads to the
incomplete conversion of triglycerides into
fatty acid esters (Leung and Guo, 2006; Guo,
2005). However, optimal product
(biodiesel) was achieved when
concentration of NaOH reaches 1.5 wt.% at
the same time further increase of catalyst
concentration proved to have negative
impact on end product yield. Because
addition of excess amount of alkali catalyst
react with triglycerides to form more soap
(Leung and Guo, 2006; Gabelman and
Hwang, 1999).
Agitation speed
Agitation speed plays an important role in
the formation of end product (mono alkyl
ester or biodiesel), because agitation of oil
and catalyst mixture enhances the reaction.
For example the mixing intensities chosen
were 200 rpm, 400 rpm, 600 rpm and 800 rpm
for 60 min while other parameters were kept
constant. At 400 rpm higher conversion of
end product were obtained. Because, lower
stirring speed shows lower product
formation. On the other hand higher stirring
speed favors formation of soap. This is due to
the reverse behavior of transesterification
reaction (Knothe et al., 2005; Demirbas, 2008;
Eevera et al., 2009; Rashid and Anwar, 2008).
Conclusion
In recent years, biodiesel has become more
the
attractive alternative fuel to diesel engines
because of its eco-friendly benefit and from
renewable nature i.e. plant and animal fats.
Transesterification is a commonly employed
method to reduce the viscosity during the
production of biodiesel. The purpose of this
method is to reduce the viscosity of oil or fat
yield using acid or base catalyst in the presence of
the methanol or ethanol. However, trans-
esterification reaction strongly affect by
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 Mathiyazhagan and Ganapathi / Research in Plant Biology, 1(2):01-05, 2011
molar ratio of alcohol, reaction temperature,
reaction time and catalyst concentration.
Hence this paper briefly discusses the factors
that will affect the biodiesel production
reaction.
Acknowledgments
The author Mr. M. Mathiyazhagan
thanks to Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund,
Teen Murti House, New Delhi, India for
providing the financial support of this work.
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